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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 TEL AVIV 000961 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA, NEA/IPA, NEA/PPD 
 
WHITE HOUSE FOR PRESS OFFICE, SIT ROOM 
NSC FOR NEA STAFF 
 
JERUSALEM ALSO FOR ICD 
LONDON ALSO FOR HKANONA AND POL 
PARIS ALSO FOR POL 
ROME FOR MFO 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: IS KMDR MEDIA REACTION REPORT
SUBJECT: ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION 
 
 
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SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT: 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶1.  Mideast 
 
¶2.  Lebanon Bombing 
 
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Key stories in the media: 
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All media highlighted Wednesday's approval by the 
Knesset, 59-40, with 5 abstentions, of the 
Disengagement Plan Implementation Law, empowering the 
government to pay 3.8 billion shekels (about USD 870 
million) to 9,000 settlers from the Gaza Strip and 
northern West Bank and begin evacuating them in five 
months.  The opponents included 17 Knesset members. 
While the mainstream media hail the vote as "historic," 
pro-settler Hatzofe banners: "Zionism's Black Day." 
The cabinet vote to give settlers notice of the 
evacuation is scheduled on Sunday.  Jerusalem Post 
quoted a source in the Prime Minister's Office as 
saying that PM Sharon was not likely to issue the 
evacuation orders for at least another month.  Although 
the media stressed the significance of the vote, they 
say that if the Knesset does not pass the state budget 
by March, the government would fall and the 
disengagement plan would not go ahead. 
 
This morning, Israel Radio cited a Fatah web site as 
saying that Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and senior PA 
security official Muhammad Dahlan are expected to sign 
a document of understandings in a few days.  Ha'aretz 
reported that the 500 Palestinian prisoners who will be 
released by Israel in the coming days include 44 Fatah 
members who were convicted of involvement in shooting 
or bombings.  This is the first time since the Intifada 
began that people convicted of such offense have been 
released early. 
 
Israel Radio reported that this morning a Qassam rocket 
was fired at a southern Gaza Strip settlement.  Near 
Nablus, Palestinians shot at Israelis from a passing 
vehicle.  There were no casualties. 
 
Yediot cited the belief of IDF Intelligence that 
Hizbullah assassinated former Lebanese PM Rafiq Hariri, 
as a signal to Syrian President Bashar Assad that this 
is the fate of those who meddle with the Shi'ite 
organization.  The army branch had initially assessed 
that Syria stood behind the hit.  A "Syrian analyst" 
was quoted as saying in an interview with Jerusalem 
Post that Damascus is unmoved by the bombing, and that, 
knowing Syria's leaders, the start of an immediate 
withdrawal from Lebanon is unlikely to happen.  Israel 
Radio reported that speaking to the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee on Wednesday, Secretary of State 
Condoleezza Rice blamed Syria for having undermined 
stability in Lebanon. 
Israel Radio reported that U.S. security coordinator 
Lt. Gen. William E. (Kip) Ward will meet today with 
Sharon, Mofaz and IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon. 
Leading media reported that Ward met with PA Chairman 
Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday. 
Maariv cited the Committee of Settler Rabbis as saying 
following Wednesday's Knesset vote that the law paves 
the way in the future for the expulsion of Arabs from 
their homes in exchange for financial compensation. 
"The passing of the law is a legal precedent and a 
legal basis that establishes that in Israel it is legal 
to expel citizens from their homes in exchange for 
compensation," read the rabbis' statement, "even after 
the vote in the Knesset, that has no validity based on 
our sacred Torah." 
 
Ha'aretz reported that a military committee appointed 
by Chief of Staff Ya'alon to examine the policy of 
house demolitions has recommended stopping them. 
 
Leading media reported that newly appointed Jordanian 
ambassador to Israel Marouf al-Bakhit is expected to 
arrive in the country on Sunday. 
 
Yated Ne'eman reported that Abbas has approved the 
application of the death penalty for Palestinians who 
were convicted of collaborating with Israel. 
 
Jerusalem Post reported that John Dugard, the UN 
Special Rapporteur on human rights in the territories, 
Wednesday told the Knesset's Constitution, Justice and 
Law Committee that the IDF has destroyed 4,170 
Palestinian homes since September 2000. 
 
Major media reported on false alarms in Iran about an 
attack against the Bushehr nuclear reactor, and cited 
Israel's denial.  Yediot quoted GOI spokesmen as saying 
that Israel "would not have missed" the reactor. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that since 1967, tens of thousands of 
dunams (one dunam equals 0.22239 acres) of land have 
been purchased by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in 
areas of strategic importance in the West Bank, near to 
the Green Line, which will be up for negotiations in 
the event of an Israeli withdrawal to the 1949-1967 
armistice lines.  According to its official policy, the 
JNF does not purchase lands beyond the Green Line. 
 
Citing AP, Jerusalem Post reported that NATO Secretary- 
General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer will visit Israel next 
week, the first trip here by a leader of the Western 
military alliance. 
Ha'aretz reported that the annual Conference of 
Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations 
opened in Jerusalem Wednesday amid criticism by the 
president of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Eric 
Yoffie, as well as other American Jewish officials and 
conference members, over the group's position regarding 
the disengagement plan.  Yoffie said that the 
conference does not represent the majority of American 
Jews as long as it refrains from expressing unequivocal 
support for the plan.  Jerusalem Post featured the 
gradual change of view of leading politically 
conservative American Jews towards acceptance of the 
disengagement plan and Palestinian statehood. 
 
All media reported that Attorney General Menachem Mazuz 
is expected today to announce an indictment against 
Sharon's son, Knesset member Omri Sharon, and to close 
the investigation against PM Sharon in the case of the 
straw companies allegedly set up to raise and disburse 
funds for Ariel Sharon's 1999 primaries campaign. 
 
All media dealt with ongoing squabbling in the military 
and among politicians following Defense Minister 
Mofaz's decision not to extend the tenure of IDF Chief 
of Staff Moshe Ya'alon. 
 
Jerusalem Post reported that Palestinian sources in 
Amman quoted Yasser Arafat's widow Suha, who lives in 
Tunis, as saying that the Tunisian security forces have 
thwarted at least five attempts on her life since her 
husband's death.  Suha Arafat reportedly claimed that 
senior PA officials were behind the attempts to kill 
her, but that she did not elaborate. 
 
A Maariv/Teleseker poll: 
-"In your opinion, was Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon a 
successful chief of staff?"  Yes: 75 percent; no: 10 
percent. 
-"In your opinion, was the decision made by Prime 
Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz 
to terminate Ya'alon's service justified or not?" 
Justified: 17 percent; unjustified: 64 percent. 
 
------------ 
¶1.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Liberal op-ed writer Yael Paz-Melamed commented in 
popular, pluralist Maariv: "Even if there are 10,000 
people who disobey orders, opposite them will be 
hundreds of thousands of people who, with a heavy 
heart, will execute the disengagement orders." 
Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized: 
"This newspaper has warily supported the disengagement 
plan and does not see a referendum as necessary.... 
Nevertheless, we recognize and respect the democratic 
right of those who oppose the disengagement plan." 
 
 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
¶I.  "Reconciliation is Already Here" 
 
Liberal op-ed writer Yael Paz-Melamed commented in 
popular, pluralist Maariv (February 17): "The Right has 
accepted many things about which the Left used to rant 
and rave, the Left has accepted the indisputable 
leadership of Ariel Sharon.  No, not all of the Right, 
and no, not all of the Left.  On the fringes, wide as 
they may be, the rift is becoming deeper, but it is no 
longer between Right and Left, but between the extreme 
Right and the Left and Right, and between the extreme 
Left and the Left and Right.  Contrary to all forecasts 
about how the people would be gripped by unbearable 
polarity, the opposite process has occurred.  It is 
enough for us to remember what things looked like in 
the period between 1993, when the Oslo accords were 
conceived, and the Rabin assassination in 1995, and in 
the years to follow.  Back then there was a real rift 
between the people, separating it into two halves. 
Israel back then was, for all intents and purposes, two 
states for two people, when each 'people' was seething 
with mounting anger towards the other.... All that has 
changed now, and will continue to change the closer 
disengagement draws, and most certainly after it is 
completed.... And even if there are 10,000 people who 
disobey orders, opposite them will be hundreds of 
thousands of people who, with a heavy heart, will 
execute the disengagement orders.  Members of the Left 
and Right as one, with a single, common goal, and with 
the fraternity of citizens carrying out the political 
echelon's decisions, understanding that this is the 
basis of our lives here." 
 
II.  "The Due Process of Disengagement" 
 
Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized 
(February 17): "This newspaper has warily supported the 
disengagement plan and does not see a referendum as 
necessary given the Knesset's well-established position 
under Israeli law as the sovereign representative of 
the popular will.  Nevertheless, we recognize and 
respect the democratic right of those who oppose the 
disengagement plan, or believe it would be better 
carried out as the result of a direct vote by the 
general public, to campaign within the bounds of the 
law as fervently as they desire for a national 
referendum.... Opinion polls have shown most Israelis 
support disengagement, although this does not mean 
those numbers would translate into a referendum 
victory.  Sincere supporters of a referendum must first 
convince this majority -- including us -- that a direct 
popular vote on this issue is the best way to continue 
on with this process, rather than it simply being used 
by those who oppose disengagement as a delaying tactic, 
or as an excuse to justify violent resistance against a 
legitimate government decision.  So far, referendum 
supporters haven't made that convincing case -- and 
their time is running out fast." 
 
-------------------- 
¶2.  Lebanon Bombing: 
-------------------- 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Middle East affairs commentator Guy Bechor, a lecturer 
at the Interdisciplinary Center, wrote in mass- 
circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot: "There is zero 
tolerance in the only superpower around, under 
President George Bush's leadership, for Syria's 
unbridled terrorist behavior." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
"The Syrians Forgot That 2005 Isn't 1976" 
 
Middle East affairs commentator Guy Bechor, a lecturer 
at the Interdisciplinary Center, wrote in mass- 
circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (February 17): 
"By assassinating Hariri, Syria informed the Lebanese 
that it was the one that put an end to the civil war in 
exchange for a clearly noted price and, if that reward 
were taken away from Syria, the state of anarchy in 
Lebanon might mysteriously return.  But the Syrians 
forgot that 2005 is not 1976.  Back then their army 
invaded Lebanon (and has stayed there to this very 
day).  Back then Syria was a regional power that 
enjoyed the support of a nuclear superpower, the USSR. 
President Hafez Assad was in his prime and Lebanon was 
at its nadir.  Syria used sophisticated methods of 
personal terrorization, exploited the conflicts between 
the various sects and enjoyed a substantial extent of 
world immunity.  And the international media were still 
in the pre-satellite era.  But there is zero tolerance 
in the only superpower around, under President George 
Bush's leadership, for Syria's unbridled terrorist 
behavior.  Damascus is at a nadir now in terms of its 
military might and its regional status, Bashar Assad 
evinces weakness in every direction, and violent 
tyrants who oppress their own peoples and their 
surroundings, as in the Iraqi case, are no longer 
deemed legitimate.  The seizure of Lebanon was always 
the greatest success chalked up by the Syrian regime, 
which was hung like a medal on its chest.  Not any 
more.  The definers of power, which have changed in the 
world towards democracy and human rights, are likely to 
turn Lebanon into the burial ground of the regime in 
Damascus." 
 
KURTZER